Culinary Adventures with Camilla

image from netflix.com This month, I hosted the first   Food'N'Flix  event of 2020; and I asked the bloggers to watch   Always Be My Maybe  and, hopefully, be inspired into the kitchen. You can read my invitation:  here . Not surprisingly, since the female lead character is a chef who makes largely Asian cuisine, we all leaned that way. I had been hoping that someone went for a dish that drew on the scene with Keanu Reeves in what I'm going to call the avant garde restaurant. I mean...dishes that play with the concept of time, an all-black monochrome course, soup extracted in a centrifuge, or sugar bubbles?! All sounded so ridiculous as to be intriguing. Ha. That scene reminded me of a $400 per person dinner that I was lucky enough to get as a work assignment years ago. This was one of the courses with new age-y foam. On the menu it was just described as "sculpted avocado with hand-foraged seaweeds." No foam listed. My husband scoffed when he saw

This month the Italian Food Wine Travel bloggers are focusing on wines made from a cooperative. Kevin of Snarky Wine is at the lead; you can read his invitation: here . Susannah of Avvinare was able to arrange for some samples from Prestige Wine Imports Corp. But I live on the wrong coast and timing was tight. So, my wines from the cooperative, Val d'Oca, didn't arrive in time to be featured for this event. Stay tuned...I'll be featuring those bottles soon! If you are reading this early enough, feel free to jump into the conversation about Italian wine cooperatives with the #ItalianFWT bloggers. We'll be live on Twitter on Saturday, February 1st at 8am Pacific time. Follow the hashtag #ItalianFWT and be sure to add it to your tweets if you chime in. I will be linking to all of the articles which will be live between Friday, January 31st and early Saturday, February 1st. Camilla at Culinary Adventures with Camilla features Hardworking Kids, Fresh Pasta, and

I still don't remember what prompted me to make these cookies. I had been staring at a jar of pink peppercorns. Maybe. But I was in charge of all the sweets for our fundraising dinner and decided to make some pink peppercorn shortbread cookies. Then, because I thought people might find them too savory, I added a dollop of beet-dyed pink frosting. Little did I know that these would be the surprise hit of the nine treats I made. I never even got one; but I'll take my husband's word for it that these were good. And you'll probably seeing these in heart-shape for upcoming Valentines' Day! Also, I scented these with Aquavit which, despite how long Scandinavians have been making and drinking aquavit, it's largely unknown outside of those countries. It's such a shame because, as a spirit, it's completely beguiling. The name 'aquavit' derives from two Latin words: aqua vitae and translates to "water of life." The French have a cle

This is a sponsored post written by me in conjunction with Texas Fine Wine and Bending Branch Winery. Wine samples were provided for this post and this page may contain affiliate links. Back for the November Wine Pairing Weekend event focused on wines from Texas, I received a bottle of Petite Sirah from Bending Branch Winery.* You can read my post for that: Texas Connections, Beef Flautas, and Bending Branch's Tannat . I am finally getting around to creating a pairing for the Petite Sirah. Forgive my tardiness. In the Glass The 2016 Petite Sirah from Bending Branch Winery retails for $35 and comes from the Newsom Vineyards, one of the oldest vineyards in the Texas High Plains AVA. In the glass, the wine pours a deep, brilliant purple with flecks of a lighter purple. On the nose, we got lots of ripe fruits. Think blueberries and plum. But it was the palate that was so intriguing. It was heavy on the stone fruit with the meatiness of a ripe summer plum but with a